Revamping Play Online - Want Some Opinions

[Dyne]

I really like the look without the ad banner at the top, but I think that's a fight I'd lose.

yeah i definately love the Geek banner towards the bottom myself. other than that the only thing that really bugs me like i said, was the text over the artwork.

[Dyne]

I'm disliking the far left justification you've added. before it was neatly aligned with the headline in the FF7 image and now it's looming out in no-mans-land. The header definitely looks way better without the banner, though... but I imagine he's putting banners in because it's a prerequisite for the green stuff.

i figured it wasn't much of an eyesore since the artwork at the top of the piece also extends out. those two points (at least to me) draw my eye more towards the middle (where they should be), right at the review.

[Drewbacca]

The play logo and the crisis core headline are what you need to justify to since the banner bleeds off the page completely (meaning it has no justification, technically).

Funny enough, I actually went through that site the other day for about an hour, visiting websites and taking screen caps of their designs for ideas. Of course, the problem now is that I've got too many different ideas which just makes things worse. *laughs*

Better too much than too little. I was going to give you EVEN MORE sites like that but now I won't. There's like 6 really good ones.

[bbobb]

I really don't like the red text block around the Title, Crisis Core. I find it pretty jarring.

[Dyne]

that's two votes against that now.

[mollipen]

Better too much than too little. I was going to give you EVEN MORE sites like that but now I won't. There's like 6 really good ones.

No, please do. I'd love to see recommendations from people with designs they think would be good. Doesn't mean I'll follow those recommendations, but I still want to see them.

Also, one more bit of playing around with this idea for now, this time in grey. Navigation is ugly just because it's a copy and paste job from the HTML test I had set up. I kind of like the lighter color of the page here, but man, with the black, those colors just pop so beautifully. Anyhow, I think I'm going to go back to coding again tomorrow, and give myself a few days to clear my head and come up with some other ideas.

[Dyne]

the grey review box on top of grey makes me look away immediately.

put one up without the artwork having type and ugly color boxes on top of it.

[mollipen]

I really don't like the red text block around the Title, Crisis Core. I find it pretty jarring.

Part of the reason I was trying that is because it gives a bit of much-needed color to the page. The only other solutions for putting the text on the image (which I really want to do) is white or black background, and black just didn't work.

I'm not committed to the idea, that's just my rationale for trying it.

[mollipen]

put one up without the artwork having type and ugly color boxes on top of it.

You mean like this? I kind of like the red "tab" at the top of the textbox, but that would easily break the moment a longer title goes into place.

Plus, this shows the failure of all of the tests I've done in this style so far - remove the artwork, and the layout feels barren.

[Dyne]

keep the art. i i've been saying to let the artwork show without having the type and ugly color box layered on top of it.
bbobb, reword this for him.